


A Car, a Torch, a Death

by Connorkuchen



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: I'm Sorry, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 19:52:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9563873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Connorkuchen/pseuds/Connorkuchen
Summary: There's a saying about loving and letting go and dropping that bullshit to the wind, autumn breezes taking that emotion away and letting it fizzle out. But why do that when you can let it fester?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Reupload! Forgot to tag shit.

It has been three days since Joshua Dun died in the accident, and it had been three days since Tyler Joseph had slept. There's a saying about loving and letting go and dropping that bullshit to the wind, autumn breezes taking that emotion away and letting it fizzle out. But why do that when you can let it fester?

Tyler had never attended a viewing before. It was all far away, like most things are far away when you don't sleep. Looking through the wrong side of the binoculars with childish innocence. Zooming back in, though, out of focus and on a digital camera with a time stamp of 2011. Josh Dun and Tyler Joseph love each other.   
Loved?  
Tyler can't help but think about if this was one-sided now. Selfish. Selfish. Looking at Josh in the casket made him want to scream, made him want to bludgeon the drunk driver that made this happen, made him want to shake Josh's shoulders until he woke up. He needed that smile, white teeth too big for his mouth and milk chocolate brown eyes. It's hitting Tyler, now. When was the last time he saw that smile?

The wake reminded him of church. Uncomfortable silence, shaky intakes of breath. Coughing. Tyler wanted nothing more than to question why nobody here wanted to talk. 'This is my best friend,' he thinks, 'Why aren't they crying? Why am I the only one crying?'. It was his turn to speak. What could he say?

"Josh...I never loved someone more than I loved Josh," Tyler starts out, tears rolling down his cheeks and dripping off his chin like a leaky faucet that just won't stop, handle turned the slightest bit to keep the flow of water coming. Drip. Drip. He kept crying.

Stop crying.

Halfway through Tyler's speech he had to stop. Head shaking, vision blurred by tears. More like a terrible digital camera. Out of focus. Time stamp, 2011. He didn't prepare a formal speech anyway. Josh couldn't proofread, Josh couldn't sit with him in the kitchen at three in the morning and laugh at his awful word choice.

There was so much blood.

Its amazing, Tyler thinks, how the place was able to clean Josh's face up. He wasn't even in the hospital for long. Death upon impact. Tyler was there, too, in Riverside Methodist. Almost had to be dragged out of the room, clinging to the hospital bed and screaming.

Drip. Drip.

\--

Tyler is still far away, still looking through the wrong side of the binoculars as he stares straight ahead, sick of hearing 'I'm sorry' as he starts the car. He remembers his arguments, the arguments he would have with Josh before this.

Sorry doesn't cut it, he would say. Sorry won't fix this situation. It's funny, isn't it, how this is so applicable.

Tyler is driving north, going 75 in a 60 zone and tightening his grip on the steering wheel. White-knuckle, glass-eyed, a shell of what he was less than a week ago. He couldn't breathe. It was like this was a high altitude, and God, he wishes it was. Maybe he would be closer to Heaven.   
He was envious of the trucks whizzing by on the left, going back south towards Josh. His Josh. They were all going his way, unaware that he was dead, unaware that they were perfectly able to stop and pay respects.

Josh was worth stopping for.

Tyler felt like jumping out of his car, 75 miles per hour right onto the concrete. Tyler felt like unbuckling his seatbelt, hitting bottom and slowly pulling the handle on the car door. Falling.

Josh was worth stopping for.

And so he did. Pulling off to the side of the highway with hazard lights on and head in his hands. He didn't open the door, he didn't hit bottom. He cried. There was guilt in his backseat, a shadow looming over him in the shape of Josh. Josh. Josh.

Would he want this? Tyler's mind is racing, biblical background turning its gears and melding with his current situation. Internal clock doesn't work.

Drip. Drip.

He's asleep.   
He's asleep, or he's dead, but he's stumbling into white nothingness with a tear-streaked face, puffing out breaths in the coldcoldcold air coming from in his heart. It was frigid. It was inside. This wasn't him. He wasn't doing this. Tyler Joseph wasn't meant for this.   
And that's when he appeared. Tyler saw him in his dreams, every time he closed his eyes. A figure. Blood dripping from his hands, wood splintering through his fingers. It's incredible how the wood was on fire--it was soaked through, burgundy and rotting.

"Stay low."

"Don't go back,"

"Stay with me."

He began to understand why God died.

 

December 25th, 2011.   
God died because he loved the world.   
And Josh died not for a purpose, but it did happen.   
And now there's a granite headstone in a field, a cross by the road, and a guilt in the eyes of alcohol. This is where Tyler kneeled, and this is where Tyler held Josh's heart in his hands. He held his intentions, he held his motivation. It was protected by him, in a glass jar with a rubber seal. Metaphorical. He held love notes. A jar of notes Josh had written through the years, piled up in one spot. He doesn't like to read them. He knows what they say.

He felt that dream creep up on him, head shaking--black eyes and bloodied hands holding a torch. 'Take me,' he screamed. 'Take me instead'.

It was both or Josh. Tyler couldn't sacrifice himself. And so he didn't.

Tyler Joseph held what was left of Josh Dun. He wanted to live for the love of his life, he never wanted to feel that chill in his bones. The shell of his former self, breath swirling around his head and entering his chest.

He understands why God died.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this sucks but whatever, it's a reupload and all of this was typed and posted on my phone.


End file.
